"My natural elasticity was crushed, my intellect languished, the disposition to read departed, the cheerful spark i]that lingered about my eye died; the dark night of slavery closed in upon me; and behold a man transformed into a brute!" -from The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass

“If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning.” - from The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass